TFTC: A Bitcoin Podcast - Special Announcement: Ten31

Episode Date: October 31, 2021

Introducing Ten31 Investing in Bitcoin-native companies. Founded and backed by Bitcoiners. Our Mission: To facilitate the freedom of mankind through individual sovereignty. Investing in Bitcoin-native companies. Focused on advancing individual sovereignty. Low time preference philosophy. Management fees directed toward Bitcoin core and Lightning developers. Check out the website

What is up, freaks? It's your boy, Marty Bent, here to announce a special announcement that is this episode. I hope you guys enjoy it. I hope you are excited for what we're about to embark on. Let's do this. You've had a dynamic where money's become freer than free. If you talk about a Fed just gone nuts. All the central banks going nuts. So it's all acting like safe haven.

I believe that in a world where central bankers are tripping over themselves to devalue their currency, Bitcoin wins. In the world of fiat currencies, Bitcoin is the victor. I mean, that's part of the bull case for Bitcoin. If you're not paying attention, you probably should be. What is up, freaks? Welcome back to Tales from the Crypt. it's Marty Bent here I guess you can say this is a special

announcement episode big move for myself Matt as well, Matt is with us we're sitting down with the 1031 team what's up freaks what's going on

how do we start so I guess for listeners of this podcast myself and Matt. I'll speak for myself. I've decided to join 1031, a venture fund focused on investing in Bitcoin infrastructure as a partner. Matt is joining as well. What would you like to say, Matt? Well, I mean, I'm pretty excited about this announcement. I think we should start with some introductions of of grant and jonathan because they they won me over on this on this

dream and this mission and uh i mean me personally i i guess i would start up with saying that i you know have a very bad history with uh venture capitalism in uh in bitcoin land um it has left me very frustrated and disappointed countless times and um i do think that there is a place for a proper mission-driven Bitcoin-only fund run by Bitcoiners for Bitcoiners, and I'm very excited to be a part of it. Great. I mean, should I just kick off and give an intro on myself? Yeah, let's do it. I mean, like Matt said, you guys sold the dream pretty well to the both of us, and Michael Tanguma is with us as well, who's also a partner.

And I think the story and the organic nature of how this came to be is a really good story and probably important to start there. Yeah, great. Look, we're very excited as well to be here and be part of a growing team and excited to have all you guys on board. I guess how I would start it and say, I've been a Bitcoiner for a number of years, but I come from the traditional finance background. So, you know, the thing that Matt said about being sort of hesitant about traditional venture capital, you know, I sort of come from the institutional investing world.

I've been working for almost 15 years in private equity, but I've been orange pilled for a while and lurking behind the scenes, learning as much as I could and just getting very excited about what's going on in the space and wanting to be more involved. And so over time, I was not just hauling Bitcoin, but I was trying to figure out what's the way for me to contribute my experience to the space to try to help move it forward. And so, you know, Jonathan can give his story as well. But, you know, we were, you know, we were doing some angel investing. Personally, I was doing it for the last five or six years, investing in a bunch of different companies because I'm an investor by profession. It's just something that I love to do. I love to get involved with companies and support them and help them grow and figure out what are ways for me to be helpful. and um and i was also a bitcoiner at the same time and then we we came across some opportunities to

to actually invest in some bitcoin companies and this is long before the idea of 1031 formed it was just jonathan and i um talking about the space you know early last year there was a lot going on with covid and a lot of fluctuations and volatility in the markets but everything seemed to devolve into Bitcoin. And that was a time where a lot of people got orange-pilled and started seeing the light. And we were seeing some opportunities to invest in the space. We started doing that personally and just were really getting excited, both of us as Bitcoiners, to do more of that and try to find interesting people, interesting companies to support. And so So we started doing it personally.

We invested in Unchained Capital as our first investment personally, and then also supported Swan Bitcoin. And we started to hear this theme of Bitcoin companies really wanting capital and people coming onto their cap table that were also Bitcoiners. And we felt like in this world of loads of liquidity floating around, that there was a huge imbalance of capital that was directed towards the broader crypto ecosystem, but a real imbalance of capital that was not going into the Bitcoin ecosystem. And so we started doing this personally. And then, you know, that that evolved into trying to spread out our our capital base to include friends and families capital. And then it went from there. But let me pause and let Jonathan chime in and introduce himself as well. Yeah, I think that was a good, good line for us, Grant.

My background is actually medicine. So practiced as a hospitalist for a bit over 10 years. During that time, I got my MBA and I ended up building, launching, and then selling a biotech hedge fund where I created models for de-risking companies in drugs as they move through the clinical trial, so phase one to phase three, and then FDA approval with a month-to-month option strategy. um well the connection between grant and i's were cousins so obviously talked for quite a while a lot about the markets with grant being in finance and in my interest in the markets but like grant said i mean everything every conversation devolved to bitcoin and what we think bitcoin is going to do and how bitcoin is the great aligner of incentives and so when we were having these discussions with companies and then with friends and family, I mean, we just saw the same kind of passion that we had about being Bitcoiners, supporting Bitcoiners echoed in the

founders, the developers, and our LPs. And I think, Grant, one thing that you mentioned that I think we should lean into and sort of highlight is the imbalance of capital directed towards crypto versus Bitcoin. It's a pretty significant imbalance from a dollar perspective, correct? Yeah, for sure. I mean, we haven't tabulated it exactly, but you can look at some of the big brand name VCs or even some of the more well-known crypto funds and you'll see an announcement pretty frequently of so-and-so raised a couple billion dollars or so-and-so raised a couple hundred million dollars for their next fund targeting crypto and and then you see deals announced of you know 50 100 million dollar even 300 million dollar plus of all of these different

funds um investing behind different cryptocurrency protocols or different um defy projects and and if you compare that to what you see in bitcoin you know there there are a few other funds um that know we think are um you know doing good things in this space but if you you sum up all of those groups together it doesn't come anywhere close to um to what's um you know being deployed in the broader crypto ecosystem and in our view as bitcoiners bitcoin is the biggest opportunity and it's the one that that makes the most sense um and you know you can you know you could sort of calculate a proxy of like how big is the different markets here um and say you know bitcoin is um you know relatively uh in size relatively larger than the next you know top 10

or top 15 crypto markets just by market cap and there's just billions upon billions and hundreds of different funds trying to speculate and drive activity there whereas on the bitcoin side it's just um you know few you know very few and far between wait so are you saying orb coin isn't a good investment well you know what i would say is you know you see an announcement like that right and you see the names of andreessen horowitz or multicoin um and like my interpretation of that is like compared to what we're doing is those firms are chasing fiat dollar gains and like what we are trying to do is just chase a bitcoin future and they're trying with their world pin opticoin um effort they're they're looking for more control and more influence on the world and

what we want to do is just align ourselves with the bitcoin mission and allow the human spirit to flourish and create more freedom for people and so in effect like our strategy is just to do the opposite of exactly what what they're doing and that's actually where Grant and I really connected being an investor working at Unchain, a portfolio company, seeing Grant recognize before people recognize what Unchain has become the past 18 months, it seemed crazy to let an individual hold a key and not rehypothecate like BlockFi. It seemed crazy to let individuals have their custody solution with multiple hardware devices and go through that process until the asset's worth $62,000. You're like, holy shit, I need to hold this. I need to hold these keys. So it's going to take BitCorners to recognize this.

It's not going to take shit corners. It's not going to take individuals to go and invest in an orb coin and Cosmos or whatever it is that, you know, transaction transaction protocol and God knows what else. So it, it was cool to connect with them. And it's been cool to see the team assemble and it's going to be a fun ride. Yeah. And I think Michael, like to keep pulling on that thread too, I think you do a really good job of really like highlighting the importance of the investment in the Bitcoin space,

particularly in the infrastructure like if bitcoin is going to grow into the the massive success that we think it can be it is imperative that we direct capital towards the teams building out necessary infrastructure like collaborative custody at unchained or people building on the lightning network and other areas of the protocol stack yeah we talked about this last week i think uh the total addressable market if we just throw a number out 400 trillion dollars and the amount of bitcoin vcs that have been raised let's say 50 60 million roughly uh and then the actual shitcoin vcs what do they raise seven to ten 20 billion dollars what's the total addressable market for shit it's zero so it's like what are we talking about here right um so yeah

massive opportunity well the other way you put it too it's a bit of a contrarian play which i saw as somebody who probably just tends to be contrarian it does seem again when you when you look at the numbers of capital that's been raised to be directed towards crypto versus bitcoin there's there's obviously a crowded crypto vc realm and in a very small bitcoin focused VC pond, if you will. And again, the capital desperately needs to get deployed into people building out this infrastructure. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's why we think that it's crazy just to reiterate that Bitcoin is now 1.2 trillion and yet we're still the contrarians here. And that's why when we first started out, we wanted to make our fund

different because we're Bitcoiners and Bitcoiners are different. So we named our management company 1031 to be kind of that hat tip to the white paper day, but to also declare that we're doing things differently our funds are low time preference i mean that's our vision that's what we named our funds so we're all in on bitcoin because we're bitcoiners yeah you know it's it it is very much sort of the the anti-vc approach we you know we i i i hesitate to to say that we're a venture capital fund because they're just such a stigma associated to that but of course that is effectively the strategy that we're taking as we're investing in the equity of early stage startups but we are trying to do things differently than traditional venture capital we

want to align ourselves as much as we can to to bitcoin so our name is based on the white paper day and we are using a portion of our management fees to give back to open source development we we made our first grants earlier in the year to open sats and to bitcoin q a and so everything that we're doing is is trying to be different and trying to break the mold of what traditional vc is you know traditional vc is often you know name your fund after the partner's names and it's you know it's not about us actually it's it's not at all about us it's about trying to create a group and trying to create a tribe which that that you know we we can get into some ideas we have around that but create a network of people that um are interested in working together and contributing

their skill sets which is what you know what we're doing we're trying to do because jonathan and i both had different backgrounds but found a way that we thought we could give back to the space But we think that most people who end up understanding Bitcoin and really getting excited about it, you know, they don't want to just invest in the space. They want to be involved. They want to participate and they want to give back. And so we're trying to figure out what are exciting ways for us to do that as a group. Yeah, I think it is a good sort of juncture to go into the value add for the 1031 network, I guess you can call it. portfolio companies and and people who may be involved uh in the fund yeah john do you want to kick off there yeah i think i'm just kind of pulling that initial thread

when grant and i started out that you know we we're not coders we're not developers but we have other skills that we can use to to try to help push bitcoin forward and as we continue to to move forward and raise capital we saw that that same kind of just echoed throughout our LPs and so we think that forming the 1031 tribe where we can have our LPs on a quarterly basis get together with themselves founders thought leaders in the space that, you know, we can have an opportunity to create an open network that allows for, you know, spontaneous interactions to create new value, therefore, you know, increasing the opportunity to help push Bitcoin forward. Yeah, you know, it felt like the traditional VC model leaves

their LP base, you know, it's an untapped resource that, and especially with Bitcoin, with people wanting to be more involved that why not leverage the experience the expertise the relationships of all these people who have been successful in their careers they come from all different walks of life but they have been energized by bitcoin and so why not create opportunities for these groups to come together for us all to collaborate you know that might that might just mean we all are trying to do our best to support a company that we invested in but it might also mean that people have ideas on how can they leverage their experience to create new projects in bitcoin so it might be a way for us to incubate um new opportunities or it might be

a way for people who have been successful in a career but want to pivot and come into the bitcoin ecosystem and work somewhere that's a way for them to network a way for them to invest in themselves as well and grow and learn and be in the flow of what's going on. And so we're really excited about it. And, you know, as Jonathan said, we just think the more opportunities there are for interactions of people, collision of ideas, that's when something special pops out out of that randomness. One of the things like I've noticed personally is, you know, a lot of times in Bitcoin land, people think, you know, if you don't have this feature or if you don't have this tool available it's because some of our someone already thought about it and realized it was not

feasible but you know nine times out of ten if you put founders together you put devs together they start talking all of a sudden there's these possibilities that come up that people had just never even considered they had never even thought of and you know one of the things that has always put a bad taste in my mouth with vc is this idea like you don't want to raise vc money because if you raise VC money, then they're going to take over your board, they're going to take over your vision, they're going to completely take over your company, your project, and you lose control. And I like to think that our goal here is pretty much the exact opposite of that. The idea is that we want to support founders, we want to support devs, and we want them to be their best self so that

Bitcoin can be stronger and more robust. And really, at the end of the day, I keep coming back to the same conclusion that, you know, if we fail here with Bitcoin, there's, there's really no other hope. Like we have no other choice. We must do this right. And we, you know, we must step up to the plate. Jonathan, Jonathan touched on, you know, other different value adds other than engineering resources. One of the biggest pleasures of my day-to-day job at Unchained is seeing individuals that are 50 to 60 years old that have had a very successful life. And you see the glimmer in their eye when they heard of Bitcoin or they found it and it's like holy shit I thought I saw everything and you're showing me like the advent of fire and they truly are good

people you just had Larry Lepard he's a fantastic guy and when I met him in Miami he looked at me and he was like it's it's what he had been looking for for 10 years since the 08 crisis and the ability to to contribute and to be able to help and steer and give his you know age-old wisdom to founders and entrepreneurs is something that has been massively needed in this industry and so that's a huge component to what brought us all together as well yeah and i think for me personally i think it just what really sold me on this vision this team and the way we're approaching this model similar to what matt said i've always had a bad taste uh about venture capitalist particularly focused on this space uh for the eight years i've been interested in paying

attention uh as i've certainly heard me talk on vcs on this podcast in the past but i do think this is this model is number one special and uniquely different and that's always been my goal as i've sort of publicly stepped into the bitcoin space when i started the newsletter and the the podcast is try to find out where Bitcoin, where I perceive there are shortcomings in the Bitcoin space and try to help out there. So with the podcast and newsletter, 2017, I thought there was a lack of quality and approachable information specifically focused on Bitcoin. And so I started the newsletter and the podcast to fill that gap that I perceived with Great American Mining as I join their team i saw that there was a need for uh the geographic distribution of hash rate and

a fight uh bringing a fight to the narrative front about bitcoin mining and energy fund and uh similar here with 1031 for me personally it's like all right there is a lack of quality investment dedicated to bitcoin and then on top of that like the the type of investors that you want to be guiding these companies and helping them out along the way. And I think for me personally, something that came into my mind when I was making a decision

was like, all right, would I rather Bitcoiners like Matt Adele, Michael Tanguma, Grant, and Jonathan investing in these companies or we're going to let the Silicon Valley typical VCs who really care about fiat gains get in? And again, it's like, if not me, then who type mentality.

like we i think um it is important to sort of shift this model and i think i'm most excited because i'm i'm really optimistic and and bullish on 1031 specifically proving that you can do venture capitalists in a different way it doesn't hurt that we also sit in the bitcoin capital of the world marty you know down here in texas yep so uh i guess we could transition to like what type of companies um are in the portfolio now you mentioned unchained uh you mentioned swan um the low time preference fund has also um helped out samurai walt and uh giga energy so that's uh samurai wild i think i would like to focus on that specifically because because they're a complete closed-loop Bitcoin model, right?

All their revenues are in Bitcoin, all their expenses are in Bitcoin. And so I think that is a very interesting company to be supporting in the fund. And then, so that's software, wallet software, privacy software. And then Giga, obviously, they're another mining company doing stuff in the oil and gas industry. So I guess, Jonathan or Grant, if you want to explain And sort of the feelings behind those companies and that sort of diversified model of allocating funds to different parts of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Yeah, so we kind of broken it down into six buckets that we're looking at with financial services, layer two, lightning, and layer three that's being built out.

mining and energy services, which we think are very, very interesting too, as you had mentioned. Sovereignty infrastructure, because we think that, I mean, Bitcoin is ultimate sovereignty. So there's companies that are going to be building out the ability for individuals to take back their data and that is something that is really important to us to to be able to you know to disintermediate the the gates that are preventing humans from being you know having their interactions or being able to speak freely um and then emerging markets we think that i mean bitcoin when you have the the discussions with individuals that are in countries that don't have the luxuries we have i mean everyone has always talked they get it quickly and they do and so companies that

help to decrease the friction for those individuals to be able to access bitcoin to be able to tap into that monetary network that is open and permissionless i mean who can't who can't get behind that so that's that's kind of our uh we'll say our six buckets that we're really looking forward to yeah and and the uh yeah we are excited about the uh the companies that we're backing and you know for people who are interested you can go to the website and see more about who they are you know 1031.bc or lowtimepreferencephone.com but you know marty what you said around um you know some of the energy companies and mining companies well as well as a samurai wallet like the way we think about it is investing um under a bitcoin standard in companies that are

operating in the bitcoin world is different from vc investing under a fiat standard you know traditionally venture investing under a fiat standard is is mostly you know it's been scale at all costs grow as quickly as you can burn cash don't operate profitably but hopefully once you scale to your millions and billions of users then maybe you can turn a profitability dial or maybe you can just still look for an exit at that time and you know we think that no doubt because of how early we are in the industry still there's going to be a lot of investment profiles that look like that. We're dealing with early stage companies that are likely not yet operating at profitability. And given the growth in the space and the tailwinds

in the industry, you will still have that profile that looks like very fast growth, burning cash for some period of time. But we also think under a Bitcoin standard, there's a profile of investment that looks different where you know you're investing in companies that can be profitable earlier on and can be operating under a bitcoin standard and accruing bitcoin on their balance sheet and that we think you know investing under a bitcoin standard is really interesting and so that's why you know we're looking at some of these companies like a giga energy that's a mining play off stranded gas and we think mining you know it's not traditionally a venture capital type of asset but we think it's pretty compelling um investment profile

yeah um obviously i have a mining background i i think uh the lack of investment in the mining space uh again it is a getting another contrarian play that i like i think the new people are severely underestimating the mining industry in bitcoin uh they just see it as all right they're they're getting energy trying to get energy to low cost and they're mining bitcoin and that's it but i don't think people are are looking forward 10 20 years where these mining companies are going to merge with the energy sector to some degree they're going to go full stack from mineral to mining and then at scale to uh mining pool level and then you can go beyond that and get get to like hash rate derivatives and stuff so it's going to be a whole stack uh i think mining

is going to be a massive play in the future and so that's what another reason i'm excited and another reason i joined 1031 is i think in the mining sector specifically i can add a lot of value um in sort of reviewing all these companies that are coming to market and and make sure that we're allocating capital uh efficiently in the space and it is desperately needed in the mining world as well mining is very capital intensive um yeah so i guess one knock i mean we just i think we just have to cover this to cover all of our bases people are like all right why 1031 you guys are stupid you're investing in companies you should just be buying bitcoin you're not going to outperform bitcoin is it possible yeah that's i mean that is one of the

most common questions uh i guess you know we touched on this a little bit earlier but because it was the point you were making marty around um you know what michael was saying is that like if if we all think bitcoin has the potential to continue to grow and possibly become the next world reserve asset and there be a monetary standard and entire economic ecosystem built around Bitcoin, then what does that mean? That means that there's more people using it. There's more people adopting it. There's companies and, you know, that infrastructure is being built around it. I think if Bitcoin just continues to exist today with no more infrastructure built around it, and we think for some reason it's going to, you know, really big fiat heights in

terms of in terms of its price like i just don't know how that exists without there being a lot of infrastructure built around it and and we one of the things we say is you know the last 10 years really was like it would be hard to outperform bitcoin um you know the asset over the last 10 years but we think now given where it is and the the entrenchment of of uh of the network and the build out of the network the next 10 years will really be about everything that's built around it and we're big believers in bitcoin we're holders of bitcoin we don't think that it should be an either or decision you know we think it does make sense to be investing behind the ecosystem because um we think there will be opportunities uh to outperform bitcoin you know you can create

You can decide what you think the upside. We're at $50,000 or $60,000 a Bitcoin today. What is the upside? Is it $500,000? Is it a million? Why are you so bearish, Grant? yeah in the next year um no pick your price but over what time frame is it going to get there um we would say some of the companies that we've invested in even many of the ones that you would argue are very well entrenched have established themselves and raised money at you know eight and nine figure valuations we think there's so much more upside even for those companies and so we there's there is an opportunity to outperform bitcoin jonathan what would you add to that yeah just uh really a couple of things um i think the companies today you know the we haven't had

all rosy pictures for the last four years with the bear market of 2018 2019 and then covid in 2020 so I mean, you had companies that had to weather those storms. So trying to, you know, create these market clearing mechanisms that, you know, there was no subsidy from the U.S. government for those zombie companies in Bitcoin. So you had companies that were forced to be lean and to navigate that. So I think, you know, being able to help to support companies that are able to be lean and nimble during difficult times will definitely flourish in good times. And so with companies that are operating on a Bitcoin standard, you're going to have the appreciation and the equity in that, you know, those companies are attracting more customers and providing more and more value to the market. But then they're also going to be, their balance sheet is going to accrue value because they're denominating their profits in Bitcoin.

So I think that, you know, investing in companies that operate on a Bitcoin standard are really provide an option to Bitcoin. And then also, like Grant said, you have these companies that are building out the infrastructure. So it's really also a flywheel for our underlying Bitcoin position. There's also, it seems obvious to us, but a lot of individuals, especially outside investors, wouldn't fully grasp is the first 10 years of Bitcoin are going to look fundamentally different than the next 10 years, the second chapter. And it's going to take actual Bitcoiners to recognize that. That's part of the thing we talk about with Unchained and other, you know, we talk about lightning, like this stuff is alien technology to banks, to individuals, to VCs. So when we talk about outperforming, it's like getting it at the ground zero at these

companies that are building things are going to, by 2030, are going to look insane when it comes. So it's going to look obvious then, but it doesn't look obvious now until, unless you're a Bitcoiner. Yeah. Yeah. The flywheel comment, that's always something I've been arguing too, because there's been discussions and groups throughout the years is like like why aren't why are many people like

focusing on investing in companies it's always like bitcoin's gonna outperform i'm like hey there's the flywheel argument always has always made sense to me like you can drive value to the underlying asset if you invest in people building out infrastructure that gives it more utility and makes bitcoin more useful and easier to use for individuals so it's always seemed like a very logical case for me like this stuff doesn't just happen right you need people to go out and build it and these people need capital to build these tools and no matter what you think of venture capital or institutional investment and how that may help some people may perceive that could sort of bastardize companies and their cap tables like it is like there is a very necessary

components of providing capital to these teams so that they can actually build um and feed their families as they're building yeah i think a great um kind of segue for us i mean to just for reiterating the points that you just made is um all right the other advisor that we have to the team parker lewis and his gradually then suddenly series i think that really can highlight you know i mean just why bitcoin and why bitcoin and why the companies are the flywheel for bitcoin yeah absolutely and you know one of the things i love um that jack mauler says you know he he's been delivering this message that early participants in an open monetary network are the ones that are poised to really win and so we think you know right now is a really exciting

time in fact probably the most attractive time that we've ever seen to be investing um you know in the ecosystem because the network has really um has really been developed and there's really interesting companies that um you know have been around for a couple years and some being formed right now that we think have the potential to be real breakouts i think matt's gonna hop in here i mean i would just add that you know this space is filled with fiat companies operating under a fiat mindset um those aren't you know the types of companies that we're focused on supporting um we're focused on supporting teams that are basically operating under the assumption that we're moving towards a Bitcoin standard

and they're prioritizing their own internal goals to surviving and thriving in that Bitcoin standard. So I think that's a key distinction because unfortunately, for better or worse, the overwhelming majority of the companies, especially in the greater crypto space, but even in Bitcoin land um are operating under a fiat mindset and that's you know that that's not the goal of of this project no not um michael i think it's a good time to uh to bring up just like the energy that you've been feeling here in texas specifically like in houston and austin like you were texting me uh i believe it was thursday or friday after coming back from the houston meetup and you're

like now people outside of bitcoin are starting to get it and they just want to they love freedom they love private property rights they love uh sound money and they just there's people from outside the space coming in that are looking to build things uh in a massive way yeah so um we had the long last weekend in austin f1 had a couple days here in the office and then parker and i took off to houston to uh spread the gospel all across texas and we had the the meetup that he's helped build or he has built and that that city and uh i want to say there was roughly 250 275 people portfolio company gig energy uh brent was on the the stage host basically um holding it down for the off-grid mining there was some other folks on you know talking on grid and brent you

know great guy we uh so we had this this meetup everybody's there we're excited we're doing client meetings across the city, oil and gas, midstream, upstream. And what just struck me was I hadn't seen, you know, living in New York City, Austin, across Texas, I hadn't seen very wealthy individuals work so hard and not flaunt it, not show it. These were just people that were building. They were in there, they were meeting, they were coming to figure out how to structure deals, how to put things together, because they were trying to build a better city in Houston and state in texas for their family for their kids to grow up and to have something that was going to last hundreds of years it wasn't just like hey i'm just trying to buy a lambo i'm just

trying to buy a bigger house um so it's just incredible to see people working hard trying to build a better world and they weren't necessarily bitcoiners yet these were just people that had been working under this standard whatever that standard was here and and it's how i was texting marty it's like driving back is like is this how the world's going to be when we have sound money when everybody's able to operate and build things that are going to last longer than they'll be ever be able to see and grow and think with humility and want to work together in collaboration so it's been really cool to see and i think that's what we're all working to achieve yeah and again just highlight the fact that the the name of the funds that we're

rolling on low time preference but again it's a it's a bit contrarian taking a longer view and building things and investing in things that we believe will give our children and grandchildren value we may not see the fruits of our labor um to the fullest extent but we know that i think i can speak pretty confidently for everybody on this podcast right now is that bitcoin is imperative i do not want my son and future children and grandchildren to grow up in world where bitcoin does not exist and not only exist but succeed the way that we believe it should be which is enable as many people as possible to access the network in a permissionless fashion and use it in a self-sovereign fashion and that's our goal is to invest in companies

that are building the tools to make it easier and accessible to do all that stuff yeah very well said You know, this is about trying to create, you know, help facilitate hyper-Bitcoinization and create a world that we want to live in and that, more importantly, that our kids can live in. You know, I've got kids, Jonathan's got kids, and this is about the future. and if we continue to teach that next generation it will become a reality and we continue to invest in these companies and help prop up the ecosystem in whatever way we can and whatever way we can contribute then that's you know that's our guiding north star yeah all right we we said we're going to do a tight hour we got like 10 minutes left for a tight hour 20 minutes or probably like 15 minutes left um okay 10 31 where

was everybody on uh october 31st 2008 i know exactly where i was i might have a a disadvantage here because it was very hard day for me to forget it was billy's that just won the world series uh i was at the world series parade marching down broad street 17 year old marty unaware that satoshi nakamoto was dropping a white paper on the world that was going to change the trajectory of my life in ways i couldn't even imagine yeah i was in medical school so i was buried in books uh yeah for me i uh it's it was like an interesting time because i spent a few years working for a big bank uh out of college i'm probably going to be close to doxing my age here

but um then i transitioned and moved to to private equity right around that time um which was right around the time that obviously that lehman was going under and i started my my new role there when you know under the chaos but like i i like to think of my last um you know 13 years uh in the role that i had is is really preparing me for you know this moment to leverage that experience um you know i worked on a number of different large-scale investments uh and sat on the boards of you know big billion dollar plus companies and really got excited about just helping out and figuring out how can you know how can i be helpful and and help companies grow and you know i was a long time in that fiat professional investor world but i look at it as

really good training grounds to try to bring all of that experience to bitcoin and the companies that you know we've been talking to um seem to be interested in in having that type of um you know experience whether it's sitting on the boards or just being an advisor informally um so you know back back then i was going through the the fallout of all that that lehman chaos and dealing with what was going on the markets but um you know i look at it as a good you know good experience i was doing nothing nearly as close as i probably was right out of high school somewhere drunk because it was halloween um i'm not going to try and dox my age even though marty always tries to trap me in doing it

but um i remember my halloween costume i was blissfully unaware of the white paper dropping unfortunately uh wish I was on that mailing list um and uh but I mean as far as the whole Lehman chaos that was happening the 2008 chaos that was happening uh as a New Yorker I experienced that firsthand um I just there were so many people um from my hometown uh friends from school their parents who just thought they like knew everything that they were the top of the world and just they could do no wrong and to me especially you know in my formative years it was like a magnificent rug pull you know it was this idea that you know there there's no one in the world that knows everything we're all just trying to figure it out as we go along um and

you know i like to think that it started to plant the seeds of of staying humble and and and keeping yourself grounded um rather than thinking you know everything and just being able to constantly adapt and constantly move forward and improve yourself um is absolutely imperative yeah it's crazy to think it's been 13 years since all the Lehman crisis uh Satoshi dropping the white paper and like we mentioned earlier the first 13 years uh have been great obviously you had the first few years bitcoin flew under the radar was these enthusiasts building out the the protocol um and trying to get more people into it and you had like the roger bearer vorhees era where they're really trying to get people into it doing uh doing bitcoin faucets and giving bitcoin

out and trying to get merchants to accept bitcoin and then you had like the i would say like what 2015 2016 bear market where things got a bit desperate but there were some hardcore people that uh hung around and really tried to ensure that that it kept going and you had the fork wars and the ico boom and uh obviously the subsequent crash over that and then like the last three years like uh jonathan mentioned earlier you had a lot of lean scrappy teams sort of uh go through a lot of shit and we have emerged in 2021 uh 13 years after satoshi dropped the white paper and i think the network is inarguably stronger than it ever has been i said this on rhr last night i think we're about to hit an inflection point uh in terms of innovation and the ability to innovate on top

of the bitcoin stack um and so like grant mentioned earlier it does seem like a very opportune and and almost a perfect time to begin allocating capital in this fashion to teams building out the infrastructure on the Bitcoin stack. And so I think the next 10 years, the next decade, the 2020s, beyond this point, are going to be extremely exciting and there's going to be an explosion in the utility that's brought to Bitcoiners

because of the company's building on the stack. And I'm ecstatic that I have the opportunity to join a team like 1031 want to work with people i love and respect and i think the way um we're going about this again i'm optimistic it can uh it can prove to the market that you can do this stuff in in more unique ways and and not try to be a fiat maxi just trying to control uh companies to to squeeze as much fiat out of them as possible i thought you were going to go full uh montage right there and started started in the white paper i thought you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna piss

people i'm gonna have to write that now i have to write that now you mentioned it no i see it yeah we're you know we're super excited to have all you guys on board i mean you've you've all been formative to us um becoming bitcoiners and over the years everything that you guys have done to for the ecosystem um we love what you do and we think you're an incredibly valuable resource um to the community and you know with michael with unchained you know unchained's one of our favorite companies and what they're doing is critically important to the space and so to to bring on a team like you guys um you know we're incredibly humbled and grateful to to be partnered with you guys.

We consider you guys brothers and are super excited. A hundred percent. I mean, I just want to add before we wrap up here that, you know, I understand among the freaks, cause I feel it as well. There's, you know, there's a lot of distaste among traditional VCs and what we're doing here in this announcement and coming to you freaks first with what we think is very big news, um, is not asking you to trust us. It's not asking you to just blindly just believe in us. Um, we seek to prove it to you. And, uh, we, I look forward to you guys holding our feet to the

fire as expected. And, uh, all, all feedback is appreciated, uh, no matter, no matter how angry it is or how disappointing it is. Uh, I do hope, uh, that, that we, that we prove you right. and and we hold true to you absolutely um don't trust verify and you know where to find us uh third third thursday in austin texas uh grant and marty i didn't know i can count on them being there every month uh we'll get jonathan and matt down consistently soon enough maybe they'll just end up living here yeah if you want to come heckle in person austin bit does meet up uh yeah no again yeah don't trust verify um we can only we can only prove via actions and um we're going to start making actions and hopefully they prove

to the world that there's a way to to invest in bitcoin companies building out self-sovereign infrastructure uh in a way that supports the teams and most importantly supports the bitcoin network in the way that we believe it should be supported so yeah announcing this on happy white paper day everybody out there uh 13 years it's uh it's a big day um it's hard to believe it's been 13 years almost half my life which is fucking insane to think of um bitcoin's already been around for almost half my life that just hit me um and uh again i'm ecstatic to be working with you gentlemen and uh very much looking forward to fucking hitting the ground running here and uh i can making sure that bitcoin succeeds is anybody i guess we can let everybody give some parting

thoughts uh as well i'll start i'm tell you i'm just absolutely stoked that um we get to do this together and you know use our talents um that we have to to help push bitcoin forward and continue to bring in more individuals that have the same kind of yearning when when they start drinking the the bitcoin moon juice yeah no absolutely not for me um you know we were bitcoiners for a while um and then we started looking at the space and if you ask me you know a couple years ago when seeds of this were really being planted unbeknownst to us that fast forward that amount of time and today we'd be sitting here doing this i wouldn't have believed you um incredibly excited um you know in it to work as hard as i can to give whatever i can to the mission of bitcoin so

so very excited to do it and um you know happy to have you guys on board with us because i think think, again, as a group and as a broader tribe that we're forming here, we can be more impactful rather than just the individual sum of the parts. Yeah, I think everybody's echoing everybody's sentiment. I think the one thing I'll add is it's such a pleasure to find Bitcoin and individuals like you guys in this mission, because we know it's going to outlast us all. We're going to do this for the rest of our lives um and to know that that's there and that's something that you can rely on is just truly a joy so appreciate uh everybody being a part of it and look forward to the next you know 50 to 100 years yeah i mean it's about legacy and that's why i'm here i think

that's why you guys are here um i honestly do consider everyone in this team family otherwise i wouldn't be doing it um to the freaks i mean this isn't the end of the conversation this is the very beginning of the conversation. I'm very excited to move forward here. And I would just reiterate, because Grant kind of just said it in passing, but I think one of the truly unique things we're doing as part of this project is in a post-Bitcoin future, it's not just about Bitcoin businesses. Free and open source projects are going to be a massive part of our children's and their children's future. So we will be contributing a portion of our management funds towards open source contributors

and developers and projects. And I think that is a truly unique thing that we are doing. And it's a key aspect of the mission as far as I'm concerned. So just to end it on, to me, a very important point. I am very much looking forward to doing that

as well as supporting Bitcoin businesses. And I look forward to going along on this mission with all you guys. Yeah, I guess I'll end it with prepare for many more disclaimers in the future oh my god there's gonna be so many fucking disclaimers prepare freaks just prepare yourselves gentlemen let's go do this shit peace and love freaks go cheers